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Thursday, February 9, 2017

Situational Assessment 2017: Trump Edition

We the People have been attempting to shut down the money power game organized in Washington for almost two generations and have merely been gamed each time as if they were total fools.

This last president saw the emergence of executive decree as the mode of choice when inability and laziness stopped other methods that as more lasting. Trump is now demonstrating just waht that means in the hands of capable leadership. He has his marching orders and several major days of reckoning are in the wind.Right now it is about transition and housekeeping and settling scores with those sworn enemies who have not yet fled the field. Yet you can smell the smoke of victory in the air.There are some serious days of reckoning ahead and it is not Trumps style to pause in in hot pursuit of his enemies and his goals.

This will truly be known as the second American Revolution and it will echo worldwide as a Christian Crusade...

While
many things have changed in the world in the past two years, 2016 saw
what looks like a phase transition in the political domain. While the
overall phenomenon is global in scale and includes Brexit and other
movements throughout Europe, I want to focus specifically on the victory
of the “Trump Insurgency” and drill down into detail on how this state
change will play out.

I use John Robb’s
term “Trump Insurgency” here to highlight the fact that the election of
2016 was not an example of “ordinary politics”. Anyone who fails to
understand this is going to be making significant errors. For example,
the 2016 election is not comparable to the 2000 election (e.g., merely a
“close” election) nor to the 1980 election (e.g., an “ideological
transition” election). While it is tempting to compare it to 1860, I’m
not sure that is a good match either.

In
fact, as I go back and try to do pattern matching, the only real
pattern I can find is the 1776 “election” (AKA the American Revolution).
In other words, while 2016 still formally looked like politics, what is
really going on here is a revolutionary war. For now this is war using
memes rather than bullets, but war is much more than a metaphor.

This
war is about much more than ideology, money or power. Even the
participants likely do not fully understand the stakes. At a deep level,
we are right in the middle of an existential conflict between two
entirely different and incompatible ways of forming “collective
intelligence”. This is a deep point and will likely be confusing. So I’m
going to take it slow and below will walk through a series of “fronts”
of the war that I see playing out over the next several years. This is a
pretty tactical assessment and should make sense and be useful to
anyone. I’ll get to the deep point last — and will be going way out
there in an effort to grasp “what is really going on”. I’ll definitely
miss wildly, but with any luck, the total journey will be worth the
time.

Own the battlefield, own the war.

Front One: Communications Infrastructure.

All
modern warfighters know that the first step of any conflict is to
disrupt the enemy’s communications and control infrastructure.

Our
legacy sensemaking system was largely composed of and dominated by a
small set of communications channels. These included the largest
newspapers (e.g., NYT and Washington Post) and television networks
(e.g., CNN, CBS, Fox, etc.). Until very recently, effectively all
sensemaking was mediated by these channels and, as a consequence, these
channels delivered a highly effective mechanism for coordinated
messaging and control. A sizable fraction of the power, influence and
effectiveness of the last-stage power elites (e.g., the neocon alliances
in both the Democratic and Republican parties) was due to their mastery
at utilizing these legacy channels.

It
is important for anyone planning in the contemporary environment to
recognize that the activities of the Trump Insurgency are entirely
different to all previous actors. Rather than endeavoring to establish
control over the legacy infrastructure, the Trump Insurgency is in the
process of destroying it entirely and replacing it with a very different
architecture. One that is intrinsically compatible with its own form of
collective intelligence.

It
is clear to me that the Insurgency is engaged in “total war”. They are
simultaneously attacking the legacy power structures on multiple fronts
(access, business viability and, in particular, legitimacy) while
innovating entirely novel approaches to the problem of large scale
communications and control (e.g., direct tweets from POTUS). Their
intent is not to play with or even dominate the legacy media — but to
eliminate them from the field entirely and to replace them with
something else altogether.

This approach is strategically optimal. The Trump Insurgency represents a novel model of collective intelligence in general. It
is the first truly viable approach that is connected directly with the
emergent decentralized attractor that has been driving
technical/economic disruption for the last several decades. This form of
governance is structurally incompatible
with the legacy media architecture. It is intrinsically dissonant with
the kind of top-down, slow, controlled, synchronized approach of the old
media. It therefore both must dismantle this architecture and replace
it with one that is in synch with its mode of operation and, thereby,
benefits massively by hamstringing any collective intelligence that
works in the old top-down fashion (i.e., all existing forces currently
at play).

To use a concept from Gilles Deleuze, the Trump Insurgency is a nomadic war machine
and it is in the process of smoothing the space of communication. To
use a simpler metaphor, if you imagine the Trump Insurgency as highly
effective desert guerrillas, they are currently in the process of
turning everything into a desert. The Establishment, optimized for
“jungle conflict”, is going to have a hard time.

From where I sit, it seems evident that the Insurgency’s ability to read-plan-react (their “OODA loop”)
is simply of a higher order than the legacy power structures. For at
least the past 18 months, the Insurgency has been running circles around
the the Establishment and the old media. Accordingly, I fully expect
the Insurgency to win this fight. Specifically, for all functional
purposes, I expect the memetic efficacy of the New York Times, CNN, the
Washington Post, MSNBC and related channels to be near zero within the
next two to four years. I would not be surprised to see several of these
entities actually out of business.

Note,
the relative position of “new media” such as Twitter, Facebook and
YouTube is harder to predict. I suspect that most of the important
conflict of this front will take place here. Right now, all of new media
is controlled by forces broadly opposed to the Insurgency. Yet the
Insurgency must establish dominance on this territory. They can
accomplish this either by capturing these existing platforms (aka “bend
the knee” capitulation) or by moving the center of power to new
platforms that are aligned with the Insurgency (e.g., gab.ai replacing
Twitter). If you think that this latter is highly unlikely, I strongly
urge you to reexamine your models and assumptions.

My
sense is that the decisive decision in this conflict is whether the
“new media” remain coupled to the legacy power structures (and their
OODA loops) or decouple and enter into a direct conflict for
“decentralized supremacy” (see my last point below). If they choose the
former, they will lose. If they choose the latter, the outcome is hard
to predict.

Front Two: The Deep State

In
ordinary politics, an elected candidate is expected to integrate with
and make relatively small fine-tuning changes to the existing state
apparatus and the mass of career bureaucrats that make up most of the
actual machinery of government (AKA the “deep state”).
Thus, while the Obama Administration might differ quite significantly
from the Bush Administration in political theory and intent, the actual
impact of theses differences on the real trajectory of the “ship of
state” is relatively small.

My
assessment is that the Trump Insurgency has identified the Deep State
itself as its central antagonist and is engaged in a direct existential
conflict with it.

Normally
this would be an easy win for the Deep State. However, I expect this
front to be the most challenging, uncertain and dangerous of the war.
The Deep State is massive, has access to vast resources and capabilities
and has been in the business of controlling power for decades. But two
things are moving in the Insurgency’s favor.

First,
the Deep State appears to be fragmented. For example, the “Russian
Hacking” scenario of the past two months looks surprisingly
uncoordinated and incompetent. I don’t know exactly what is going on
here, but it is clearly not the product of a unified and smoothly
operating Deep State.

Second,
it seems highly likely that the Deep State is prepared to fight “the
last war” while the Insurgency is bringing an entirely different kind of
fight. The Deep State developed in and for the 20th Century. You might
say that they are experts at fighting Trench Warfare. But this is the
21st Century and the Insurgency has innovated Blitzkrieg.

Let’s
take a look at the “fake news” meme for example. This has all the
earmarks of a Deep State initiative. Carefully planned, highly
coordinated, coming from all authoritative directions, strategically
targeted. My read is that this was a Deep State response to the
Communications Infrastructure fight. But it looks like this initiative
has not only failed, but that the Insurgency has been able to leverage
its decisive OODA loop advantages to turn the entire thing around and
make “fake news” its own tool. How? By moving rapidly, unconventionally,
in a very decentralized fashion and with complete commitment to
victory.

If
my read is correct, the balance of the struggle between the Deep State
and the Insurgency will be determined by how quickly the Deep State can
dispense with old and dysfunctional doctrine and innovate novel
approaches that are adequate to the war. In other words, is this the
Western Front (France falling in six weeks) or the Eastern Front (the
USSR bleeding and giving ground until it could innovate a new war
machine that could outcompete the Wehrmacht).

If
my read of the situation is correct (which, of course, it very well may
not be), then the Deep State would be ill advised indeed to undertake
any major efforts in the next 12–24 months. For example, an “impeach
Trump” initiative, would almost certainly be an enormous strategic
disaster. In spite of the apparent strength of the Deep State, the
Insurgency’s superior OODA loop would likely result in an Insurgency
victory in this fight — and victory here would greatly strengthen the
Insurgency’s position. (Can you say “Emperor Trump?)

From the opposite direction, the Insurgency would be well advised to Blitzkrieg.
Right now it has the advantage of an approach and a model that its
opponent doesn’t understand and can’t react to effectively. But the Deep
State is deep. Given time it could learn how to win this fight. If the
Insurgency wants to win, it needs to radically reduce the Deep State’s
strategic agency quickly. This means moving fast and moving decisively.

I cannot overstate how deeply
dangerous this fight is. Classically, when a long-standing hegemony (cf
“Pax Americana) is weakened and distracted by intra-elite conflict,
rivals like Russia and China will see an opportunity to move from a
hegemonic to a multi-polar world and can be tempted into adventurism. In
these conditions, even the slightest mistake can push the system into
nearly catastrophic conflict.

Front Three: Globalism

Anti-globalist
rhetoric was one of the most enduring and central features of the Trump
campaign. Indeed, if Trump clearly stood for anything, resisting the
“false song of globalism” was it. And all evidence in the post-election
environment is that the Trump Insurgency will indeed be actively
anti-globalist.

What
is flat out astounding is the relative ease with which Trump has been
able to cut through globalist Gordian Knots. For half a decade, the
Trans-Pacific Partnership was an unstoppable juggernaut. Until, that is,
Trump decided to end it. Perhaps this is evidence of a “below the
surface” weakness that made TPP a paper tiger. Perhaps it is evidence of
the relative balance of power between nationalist and globalist
institutions. At least when the nationalist institution is the United
States. (Compare the Greeks vis a vis
the EU). Perhaps it is evidence of a larger scale anti-globalist
conflict that has been raging for nearly a decade and has been surfacing
all over the place (Brexit, Trump, Le Pen, etc.).

In
any event, it is a significant victory and I am certain that it will
embolden the Insurgency. At this point, I expect the Insurgency to cut
deep into globalist power institutions (the World Bank, the UN, various
treaty organizations) and, more importantly, globalist-allied national
institutions like the Federal Reserve. The Globalists have an odd
connection to power. Generally, they must move through influence and
threat to elites, with a non-trivial amount of mass level propaganda to
smooth the way. The Insurgency is broadly immune to globalist
propaganda, the Insurgency elites seem unlikely to play ball with
globalist elites or to back down under threat. At this point, I see only
two real moves available to the globalists. 1) economic destabilization
hoping to turn “the people” against the Insurgency; 2) some kind of
some kind of social/military destabilization.

But
I don’t give the globalists much of a chance. Of all of the major world
powers, only the EU is currently dominated by globalists, and with the
victory of Brexit and the surge of nationalism in France, the
Netherlands, etc., even the Eurocrats are on the run.

By
moving quickly and decisively against the Deep State allies of
globalism at home and erecting nationalist resilience to global
institutional influence (e.g, high tariffs and protectionist monetary
policy), combined with shaping a narrative that points all bad economic
news directly at globalists, the Insurgency might well be able to cut
most globalist power off at the knees.

Notably,
even large multi-national corporations — until recently appearing to be
pulling the strings of political policy — seem to be rapidly
capitulating to the Insurgency. The two major globalist forces that have
not yet been publicly tested are the energy companies and the banks.
What will happen here remains to be seen. A cynic might suggest that the
Insurgency itself is only superficially populist and in fact really
simply represents the interests of Energy and Banks against other
elites. That cynic might be right, we shall see.

The
net-net result of this front will be a significant weakening of the
post-War global institutional order and a rebalancing of power along not
yet fully understood nationalist alignments. It is not clear what
effect this change will have. For example, one might expect “global
scale” issues like climate disruption or terrorism to lose focus and
efficacy — but that isn’t clear. It is certainly plausible that
nation-to-nation alliances can make significant forward progress in even
these areas of interest. Particularly if you assume that globalist
agendas were extracting value from global scale crises rather than
resolving them.

Moreover,
there is no reason to believe that a multi-polar nationalism will be
less stable over the long term than a hegemony. History has certainly
cut both ways. Perhaps what is most clear is this: the period of transition
as globalist forces struggle to maintain power while nationalist forces
are not yet in any form of stable equilibrium with each-other is a
moment (possibly lasting years) of extreme danger.

Bacteria developing antibiotic resistance.

Front Four: The New Culture War

Last week, Reddit user notjafo expressed something important. It is worth reading his entire post,
but the gist is this: the left won the culture war of the
1960’s — 1990’s. And the Trump Insurgency does not represent “the next
move” of the old right in that old war. It represents the first move of
an emergent new culture. One that is directly at war with the “Blue
Church” on the ground of culture itself.

“The
Blue Church is panicking because they’ve just witnessed the birth of a
new Red Religion. Not the tired old Christian cliches they defeated back
in the ’60s, but a new faith based on cultural identity and outright
rejection of the Blue Faith.” — /u/notjfao

While
I can nit pick at some of his analysis, broadly speaking I agree. As of
2016, the shoe is on the other foot — the counter culture has become
the mainstream and the Insurgents are the new counter culture.

Similar
to the other battles, this Culture War front is characterized by a
distinction between a more powerful and established Blue team organized
around and fighting “the last war” and a Red team still in flux but
beginning to figure out how to fight from the future. And, as per the
other fronts, until the Blue team figures this out, it will continue to
lose ground without understanding why.

In
this case, however, the superior OODA loop of the Insurgency is only
part of the strategic shift. Of far more importance is the fact that the
Insurgency evolved within a culture broadly dominated by the values and
techniques of the Blue Church and therefore, by simple natural
selection, is now almost entirely immune to the total set of “Blue
critique”.

In
other words, if we map the arc of the culture war from the 1950’s
through to the 1990’s we will see the slow emergence of a set of
strategies, techniques and alliances on the part of the emerging Blue
Church that became increasingly perfected and effective over time. For
example, the critical power of the epithets “racist” or “sexist” which
had little or no traction in the 1930’s and 1940’s had, by the 1990’s
become decisive.

Yet,
even as the Blue Church was achieving dominance, the roots of the
Insurgency were being laid. And, like bacteria becoming increasingly
immune to an antibiotic after constant exposure, those aspects of the
emergent “Red Religion” that were able to survive at all
began to coalesce and expand. What has now erupted into the zeitgeist
is something new and almost completely immune to the rhetorical and
political techniques of the Blue Church. To call an adherent of the Red
Religion “racist” is unlikely to elicit much more than a “kek” and a
derisive dismissal. The old weapons have no more sting.

Moreover,
the Red Religion does not intend to engage the Blue Church in any way
other than “outright rejection.” It considers the Church and its
adherents to be acting in bad faith by default and the doctrines of the
Church to be little more than a form of mental illness. Accordingly, the
Red Religion has no intention of dialogue, conversation or even sharing
power with the Church.

The Blue Church should expect to meet the Red Religion in war. And in this conflict the Red Religion has the advantage.

In
the nature of every movement that has endured the crucible of
selection, the Red Religion is much more coherent and focused than the
dominant Church which is criss-crossed with internal conflict and
in-fighting. The Red Religion was born into and optimized for new media
(e.g, optimized for memes rather than films) and as the balance of power
shifts from 20th Century media to 21st Century media, this inures to
the advantage of the Reds. Going deeper, even as the Red Religion has
developed an immunity to most of the primary techniques of the Blue
Church, it has simultaneously developed its own memetic/values structure
connected with deep human values that stem from ancient “tribal
selection” and are highly attractive to the portions of the human family
(men and women) who are focused on protecting and defending their tribe
(hence the Red Religions’ intrinsic focus on Nationalism).

In
other words, over the short to mid term, most of the humans who are
best prepared to wage war — who are most attuned to and psychologically
ready for war — will be attracted to the Red Religion. They will be
focused, almost entirely immune to the entire portfolio of Blue weapons
and they will be armed with and optimized for 21st Century techniques of
waging culture war.

As
a consequence, the result of this conflict will almost certainly be
fatal for the Blue Church. We are already witnessing it, in the form of
both an increasingly desperate “doubling down” on obviously impotent
attacks and a creeping demoralization within the fabric of the Church. I
expect to see this accelerate and as the Insurgency wins on other
fronts, the set of alliances that hold the Church together will begin to
unravel and the Church will collapse.

The sooner that happens, the better it will be for everyone.

Right
now, the Church is killing us. While it is holding many important,
necessary values, it is also holding a ton of stuff that is deeply
dysfunctional. But by monopolizing the instruments of culture and power,
it inhibits us like a well meaning but overbearing parent from being
able to form the new innovations in culture, practice and value that are
necessary to our age. The collapse of the Blue Church is going to lead
to a level of “cultural flux” that will make the 1960’s look like the
Eisenhower administration. As the Church falls away, the “children of
Blue” will explode out in a Cambrian explosion and reach out to engage
in all out culture war with the still nascent Red Religion.

This
Culture War will be unlike anything we have ever seen. It will take
place everywhere all at once, constrained less by geography than by
technical platform and by the complex relationship between innovation
and power on an exponential technology curve. It will be a struggle over
not just the content, but the very sense and nature
of identity, meaning and purpose. It will mutate so quickly and will
evolve so rapidly that all of our legacy techniques (both psychological
and institutional) for making sense of and responding to the world will
melt into so much tapioca. This will be terrifying. It is also the
source of our best hope.

For those who want the tldr, it is this: we live in a non-linear world, stop thinking linearly..

Once
you have accepted this as the task, you will eventually come to an
important conclusion: you can’t. By yourself, you can’t think
non-linearly. This isn’t your fault. Individual human beings can’t think
non-linearly. Only “collective intelligences,” those agents of
“inter-subjective consciousness” can. To put it more simply, we implement and do things as individuals. We innovate as tribes. And the world we live in today — the world of the 21st Century — is a world of continuous innovation..

In
this environment, for the first time ever in history, the ability to
innovate is decisively superior to the ability to deploy power. Prior to
today, the rule of “the battle goes to whoever gets there the first
with the most” was a decent rule of thumb. Of course, this has never
been strictly the case. Most of the great stories of history are built
around moments of innovation where the smarter but less powerful group
was able to outwit and undermine their opponent with superior technique,
technology and strategy. Over time the balance has slowly but
consistently moved in the direction of innovation. Ask Turing and
Oppenheimer about the accelerating pace of innovation as it relates to
war..

The
conflict of the 21st Century is about forming a Collective Intelligence
that can outwit and out innovate all of its competitors. The central
challenge is to innovate a way of collaborating and cohering individuals
that maximally deploys their individual perspectives, capabilities,
understandings and insights with each-other. Right now, the Insurgency
has the edge. It has discovered some key ways to tap into the power of
decentralized collective intelligence and this is its principal
advantage. While it is definitely not a mature version of a
decentralized collective intelligence, it is substantially more so than
any collective intelligence with which it is competing and unless and
until a more effective decentralized collective intelligence enters the
field, this advantage is enough..

Like
all wars, the shape of this particular conflict will be highly
dependent on path, timing and surprise. Right now, for example, the
relative difference in power between the Establishment and the
Insurgency is large, and while it continues to lose it’s impact, power
still matters. At the same time, while the Insurgency has a meaningful
advantage in “collective intelligence” this advantage is not
overwhelming. Thus the details of the situation that I describe above.

So,
for example, if the Deep State uses its power advantage as a way to
stall until until it can innovate a collective intelligence advantage,
it has a decent chance. (Of course, becoming a decentralized collective
intelligence is going to be really hard for the actual individuals who
make up the Deep State to understand and accept.).

But
watch out as the conflict evolves. As the Insurgency cuts down and
unplugs legacy power structures (e.g, the media, the intelligence
agencies) and replaces them with more fluid and innovative approaches
(e.g., gab.ai and Palantir) the balance will begin to tip quickly. If
the Establishment cannot stave off the Insurgency in the next 4–5 years,
that phase of the war will be over.

Then
the real question. Does the Insurgency and the Red Religion represent a
stable attractor in the 21st Century. Can it form a collective
intelligence that is able to select-against and out-compete all comers.
If so, what does this look like? My sense is that this is ultimately a
highly unstable state. While tribalism (nationalism) can be very potent
in the short term, it is ultimately a deeply unstable ship to navigate
the oceans of the future.

Or
is there a different timeline where one of the “children of Blue”
discovers an approach that is more intelligent still — one that is more
fit to ride the wave of exponential technology and global scale crisis?
One that is more fully in line with the true nature of inter-subjective
consciousness? One that can scale without losing its coherence? One that
is adequate to the whole set of existential challenges of the 21st
Century?.

Such
an eventuality is certainly possible — although the most robust
collective intelligence is likely to be more purple than red or blue.
How likely? Well, right now I think we have a decent chance but really
do believe that the die will be cast in the next 3–5 years.

For those who want to take action, I have three recommendations:

The
Blue Church, the Deep State, the Old Media and all the other aspects of
the Establishment are holding you back. Free your mind. This is going
to be much harder than it sounds. For most people, if you are under 40,
your entire development has taken place within the context of the Blue
Church.

Many of your deepest assumptions and unconscious values are
going to have to be examined with brutal honesty and courage.All
Collective Intelligence is gated by Sensemaking. Right now, our
collective sensemaking systems are in complete disarray. We don’t know
who or what to trust. We barely even know how. Find ways to improve your
individual sensemaker and collaborate on collective sensemaking
systems. This should get easier as the old media and the Blue Church
collapse.

Both
#1 and #2 require other people. And, since all of our old ways of
collaborating with other people are either suspect or obsolete, you are
going to have to learn how to build real faithful relationships the old
fashioned way. Get much better at making friends.
I don’t mean casual acquaintances. And I definitely don’t mean social
network contacts. I mean the kinds of people who ready willing and able
to actually care for you — even at risk to themselves. Not because of
shared ideology or even shared mission, but because of the deep stuff of
human commitment.

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Gadget

About Me

Apr 2017 - 4.1 Mil Pg Views, March 2013 - Posted my paper introducing CLOUD COSMOLOGY & NEUTRAL NEUTRINO rigorously described as the SPACE TIME PENDULUM, September 2010 I am pleased to report that my essay titled A NEW METRIC WITH APPLICATIONS TO PHYSICS AND SOLVING CERTAIN HIGHER ORDERED DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS' has been published in Physics Essays(AIP) and appeared in their June 2010 quarterly. 40 years ago I took an honors degree in applied mathematics from the University of Waterloo. My interest was Relativity and my last year there saw me complete a 900 level course under Hanno Rund on his work in relativity,as well as differential geometry(pure math) and of course analysis. I continued researching new ideas and knowledge since that time and I have prepared a book for publication titled Paradigms Shift&. I maintain my blog as a day book and research tool to retain data and record impressions and interpretations on material read. Do join my blog and receive Four items of interest daily Monday through Saturday.